Singapore — Many members of the public are calling for the National Day Parade 2021 to be cancelled completely.
“Wake Up, Singapore”, a Facebook group, posted a screenshot of an article by CNA titled “National Day Parade 2021 to be postponed to Aug 21: MINDEF”.
While it was announced that the National Day Parade (NDP) 2021 was to take place on Aug 9 initially, the Ministry of Defence has shared some updates on the event and said that it was to be postponed to Aug 21 instead. The NDP rehearsal and preview which were set to take place on Jul 24 and Jul 31 respectively, will be held at a later date as well.
Due to the recent KTV and Jurong Fishery Port clusters, the number of Covid-19 cases in Singapore has been on a steady increase. As such, Covid-19 restrictions have been tightened to prevent the virus from further spreading.
A few netizens commented that Singaporeans could always celebrate in other ways, even without a parade.
Some thought that the soldiers who were involved in the event could be put at more risk and will feel uncomfortable marching due to the masks as well.
Some said that it was unlikely that people in Singapore would be in a celebratory mood due to the number of cases as well as the restrictions.
After taking into account the amount of money spent on National Day Parades, several netizens thought it might be better to donate the money to those who needed it more instead.
Earlier, on Thursday, Wake Up, Singapore also put up another post questioning if there is a need to allocate such a large budget to the National Day Parade especially in the middle of a pandemic when the money and resources could go to suffering businesses and the needy instead.
You Zi Xuan is an intern at The Independent SG. /TISG